I got you now, Red Heart

So get this, I had two colors of Red Heart Super Saver, Claret, which was the one that felt thinner and lighter, and Mulberry, which felt like normal.  Both had the same label, same weight, same yardage (supposedly)

I completed a hat in both colors.  With the Mulberry I had maybe 5 yards left.  The Claret I easily have 20 left.

I also weighed the two hats.

The thin Claret is on the left, the normal ‘stiff’ RHSS is on the right.  You can see the size difference, and it would have been even worse but I increased the max stitch count at the head area from 65 to 70 on the Claret, and added 3 extra rows to the brim.  And STILL had a pile of yarn left over.

Also, the hat on the right weighed 12.9 ounces and the hat on the left weighed…. 10.1.  Nearly 3 ounce difference.  I wrote to Yarnspirations asking them to explain the situation.  I really don’t want to have to swatch on the same brand, same type of yarn, based on the COLOR or whatever else is going on.

What happened, Yarnspirations?

I had customized the witch hat pattern so it fit perfectly on most (female) heads. I’ve tried Red Heard Super Saver, Caron One Pound, Lion Wool Ease, Caron Simply Soft (too thin), I Love This Yarn.  As well as other brands I was given one way or another that had no labels or I don’t recall.

Well, a client had noted that of the two hats they purchased, one felt smaller.  It was a Caron One Pound + RHSS combo, the mermaid hat, vs one that was a mix of older RHSS Ombre and an I Love This Yarn. I had commented that the same weight yarn (4), hook, stitch count, etc, had all been used.  I was using yarn I’ve used for almost 100 hats no problem.

Well, I purchased some RHSS the other day and it’s clearly different.  It’s softer for one thing, but seems to fuzz up just by handling it.  RHSS use to squeak on my hook because it was rather rough and now it doesn’t.  I had to increase the width by 5 stitches but got so frustrated I pulled out a hat I made from the same yarn purchased over a year ago and look at the difference!

But CatchMe you say, maybe it’s just the curl.  For that I reply:

Huge difference.  I am not pleased.  I had the same problem with Lion Brand Wool-Ease.  I was using 60 stitches at the largest round, now it’s so thin I had to increase to 65!  What is going on?

Pink Whisper Witch Hat

Another in the Caron Jumbo Ombre.  This color is just to die for, it’s actually called Sepia but it’s a lovely muted pink type of color.

This would be glorious for any number of other projects, especially if your stitch count was the same like for a scarf or sweater.

If you look closely though, this one went from light pink, to white, to light pink, then faded to the darkest color.  Just like with the blue one, it is not possible with this yarn to go from lightest to darkest in one go.  Red Heart Ombre can do it if you plan well though.  The colors in this yarn duplicates about 3 times through the whole skein, whereas red heard is about twice. In my experience anyway.

Winter’s Chill Hat

I finally decided to try a different color of the Caron Jumbo Ombre:

It really got me thinking about making an all white one and then dip-dying it.  It’s difficult to match the ombre up between two skeins and often I have to snip one skein, pull a bunch out, then retie it to match the other.  Also since the hat starts at 4 stitches and ends at 65, the fade can get lucky and go from light to dark but with this yarn, that was not possible.  I did it with Red Heart Ombre but you are still dependant on finding the absolute end of the lightest or darkest color to start with.  Then still cross your fingers.

Another solution would be to find a brand that has multiple colors in the same overall shade (Red Heart, I Love This Yarn! also possibly) and just manually do the fade.  I’ve said this in other projects but I do not like when rows 1-10 fade nicely but then 80+ start changing more frequently because the rounds are longer. The only yarn that did this nicely was Caron Tea Cakes and I can’t even get those any more!

Witch of the Midnight Sun

I was almost done with an all black hat when I thought about all the Autumn Sky Premier Colorfusion I still had sitting around.  I had planned on making a coat out of it using the sunflower grannie squares but I hadn’t gotten around to it quite yet.  So instead I added that yarn to this witch hat, I rather like how it came out. It didn’t feel like chunky yarn, though.